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Zarzuela: Pasión, Arte, Fuego
Orquesta de Cámara de La metamorfosis, c. Jorge Parodi 12 de octubre 2014 Centro Español de Queens, Nueva York revisado por Anna Tonna |
Zarzuela returns to New York City
On Sunday October 12, 2014 the Centro Español de Queens in New York City, in collaboration
with the Spanish soprano Amaia Arberaspresented
a concert with singers and chamber orchestra, led by the Argentinean conductor Jorge Parodi,
entitled Zarzuela: Passion,
Art, Fire. Located in Astoria NY, just outside of Manhattan, Centro
Español de Queens boasts a medium sized theatre with a generous proscenium
stage; filling up the audience space to capacity, the concert played to well
over 250 patrons, mostly Spanish speakers, and many of them zarzuela fans who
hummed or tapped along with the singers and orchestra.
With no permanent entity in New York City to produce
zarzuela, save the once a year concert produced by the tireless association of Los amigos de la Zarzuela in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie
every autumn, the absence of the once thriving zarzuela seasons offered in the
past by Teatro Thalia and the Repertorio Español (as well as the old zarzuela
company in Union City, New Jersey) has left a vacuum for lovers of the genre in
the Greater New York City Metropolitan area. As evidenced by the showing at
this concert, zarzuela and music lovers in the large Hispanic community would
welcome with open arms concert performances and fully staged zarzuelas in the
great city of New York once more.
The concept of the show was the antología style, showcasing gems from zarzuela’s
most well-known solos, ensembles and orchestral preludes. Within this
framework, the stage was set as a contemporary bar lounge, complete with a
bartender personified by the Spanish actor and New York City resident Rafael Abolafía, and
presided over by MaestroJorge Parodi, who expertly lead the Metamorphosis Chamber
Orchestra. Although the famous orchestral prelude to La revoltosa got off to somewhat soft start from
the brass section, the orchestra found its sea legs by the time it arrived at
the difficult scenes from Sorozábal’s La
tabernera del puerto; and they played the vivacious and crisp rhythms of
the ensemble numbers from Barbiere’s El
barberillo de Lavapiés as if
they had been doing so all their lives. The orchestral reduction left nothing
out of the familiar counterpoints and melodies from the pit – not an easy task
for the arranger, given zarzuela’s usually dense late romantic orchestrations.
Some numbers were given with piano accompaniment by Ainhoa Urkijo.
The cast was a mix of Spanish and Latin American
singers residing in New York City – sopranos Amaia Arberas (a native of San
Sebastián, País Vasco, Spain) and Virginia
Herrera (Mexico); tenors César Delgado (Mexico), Hamid Rodríguez (Puerto Rico) and Antón Armendríz (Spain); and the bass Eliam Ramos (Puerto Rico). The stage direction and
dialogue, which was a mix of the standard librettos and newly written scripts,
was executed by Armendríz, who in his native La rioja leads the company Asociación Rioja Lírica.
Under his direction the varied scenes were performed in modern dress, with
stage scenery and in revista (revue) style, and with minimal plot
and dialogue to bind the numbers together. All were golden nuggets of the
repertoire – the men’s trio from La
tabernera del puerto, the romanza ‘No puede ser’with
Rodriguez’s dark and robust tenor; the bolero from Los diamantes de la corona beautifully sung by Arberas and
Herrera in a novel staging; Ramos’s lyrical bass voice and acting was
especially highlighted in ‘Despierta Negro’
from La tabernera… as well as a sensitive reading of
Santi’s romanza from El
caserío.
Herrera’s
gorgeous lyric soprano proved effective both in comedy and tragedy, evidenced
in her passionate reading of both dialogue and aria from Lecuona’s Maria la O, and the
illiterate Pilar’s touching romanza
de la cartafrom Caballero’s Gigantes
y Cabezudos. Arberas featured the famous numbers for tiplefrom Las hijas del Zebedeo,Marina as well as the celebrated zapateado from La
tempranica. Her cleanly emitted silver soubrette was well suited to the
light and comical numbers of the evening; and the personification of Paloma in the
excerpts from El Barberillo
de Lavapiés provided some of
her best moments, as she exuded charm and confidence in a role for which she is
ideal. Her duet‘Este pañuelito blanco’ from Torroba’s La chulapona marked the first entrance of
Delgado’s well-moulded and beautiful lyric tenor voice, which is ideally suited
to the this composer’s very full orchestration. The performance of this
duet crackled with excitement, as did Delgado’s performance with Herrera in the
Javier/Carolina duet from Luisa
Fernanda. The stagings of both duets was sensual, seductive and playful.
The evening’s stage director Armendríz is a character
tenor, and his snappy dialogue and manner as Lamparilla in El barberillo de Lavapiésadded
wonderfully to the mixture. Arberas and Armendríz were the driving force
dramatically, and their authentic Spanish accents and late 19th century madrileño idioms and mannerisms brought an
element of great authenticity to the evening.
It is to be hoped that more performances like this
will follow from El Centro Español de Queens. The seemingly endless flow of
singers from Latin countries coming to reside in New York City makes the lack
of regular performances of zarzuela baffling. I await eagerly whatever the next
season will bring, from this young, new troupe who are championing the genre in
NYC.
©
Anna Tonna and zarzuela.net, 2014
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